Monday, 30 January 2012

Milk is natural

...unless it is dairy milk!

Staff at Aberystwyth University's Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) are working on a laboratory-designed food additive to artificially manipulate the content of dairy milk. They say "it could provide a financial boost for dairy farmers and feed manufacturers." Another step removed from being in any way natural, then. Their next step is to begin experimenting by making cows eat the supplement.

Sadly "The project has benefited from £126,270 funding from the Welsh Government’s A4B programme" - so public funding is paying for additives that benefit profit-based initiatives and companies, such as the three industrial partners, including a huge supermarket chain and an animal feed manufacturer. Alun Davies, Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Food, Fisheries and European Programmes, is responsible for using public money to benefit private companies.

There is more information abotu the dairy industry here. It is also worth noting that "by law, every litre of milk can contain up to 400 million pus cells. Modern intensive dairy farming ensures that at any given time, 30 per cent of all British dairy cows have mastitis – a painful infection of the udders which issues copious amounts of pus. Some of it is legally allowed into the milk and dairy products that people consume." The UK situation resembles that in the US.